


From The Bitter Ashes

by JoansGlove



Category: Wentworth (TV)
Genre: F/F, Heavy Angst, Medical Procedures, Retribution, Torture, self-injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-30
Updated: 2016-12-06
Packaged: 2018-08-27 23:05:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 9
Words: 20,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8420626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoansGlove/pseuds/JoansGlove
Summary: If the past is a foreign country then why is Joan unable to set foot back in her own land?Only two things are certain: Smith is dead and Joan is free. But freedom can be a terrible thing....





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> With HUGE thanks to Ifitbelove for her perceptive insights and considered opinion XX 
> 
> And as always, with much thanks to DirtyDuchess xx
> 
>  
> 
> This fic has been hard to write and I know that for some, it will be hard to read.  
> But if you do, please remember, Joan's responses to the indignities visited on her are not intended to be representative of anybody else's experiences

Freedom. A word synonymous with nothing left to lose, yet no one knew just how much they _could_ lose until that word was removed from their lives. Joan knew.

 

Any link between Joan and the demise of the Prosecution’s star witness was now no more than mere supposition, all the Police were left with was coincidence - a nasty, inconclusive word that stuck in their collective craw like a jagged bone. Even the suggestion of Manslaughter was laughable once all the evidence against Smith had been weighed up; Vera should have chosen her killing field more carefully – two camera feeds had documented Smith’s suicidal lunge (but luckily, not the fatal blows) and Joan's understandably shocked horror, and a search soon revealed the shank’s hiding place and the phone, still hot from numerous calls to Franky Doyle. The Police had grudgingly been forced to accept that Joan's claim of a plot against her had some truth to it. Joan basked in the warm glow of righteousness knowing that the Police had found the revolver in Doyle’s flea-pit of a bedsit and that even now, she was back in Wentworth charged with conspiracy to commit Assault with a Firearm and possession of an illegal weapon – she was fucked, and for a long time too! But Joan didn’t know if she would ever be able to repair her relationship with Shayne and the angry uncertainty bit deeply.

But, best of all, in the face of overwhelming evidence Vera had been forced to admit that she had engineered the whole failed encounter in a twisted attempt to bring Ferguson to book for offences that had never even made it onto the charge sheet. Poor Vera, too many cameras and not enough brooms thought Joan with a wry twist of her lips. Rita had been right - she never could cut it.

 

She signed her name with a flourish and smiled at the desk Sergeant, leaving him to collect up the final bail paperwork as she stowed her pen and turned to exit. “Have a good day now,” he said and wearily prepared to deal with his next ‘customer’ - but not before he had one last appreciative stare at Joan's long, shapely legs.

“Thank you,” she replied brightly as she waited for the automatic doors to wheeze open, “I intend to do just that!” Finally, after so many months of incarceration, suspicion and bail restrictions she was her own woman again. With a deep breath Joan squared her shoulders and strode out of the station.  She brushed past a couple of hopeful reporters who fell back in the face of her glacial indifference, and headed for her car. She had an appointment to keep.

 

Joan’s heart swelled as Maggie rounded the Arrivals gate. She felt her soul lighten just at the sight of the familiar tall figure and her face split into a delighted grin as Maggie spotted her and fought her way through the teeming throng before abandoning her bags and wrapping her arms around Joan in a bear hug that drove the air from her lungs and filled her with gladness. Yet her initial joy was worryingly fleeting and Joan lapsed into tense silence as they walked arm in arm to the parking facility.

Maggie felt almost breathless with relief that she was finally reunited with Joan after so many months of frantic worry. She had gleaned precious little from Joan's solicitor and her terse conversation with Vera had left her in a state of panicked anxiety. She’d wanted to come to Joan the same day she’d been released on bail but Joan refused; she didn’t want to taint her reputation with the pall of ignominy that she felt was still hanging over her. So Maggie had waited, waited four agonisingly long weeks until they knew for certain that Joan was wholly cleared.

 

Once they were in the relative privacy of Joan's car Maggie turned to her and, holding her face in her gnarled hands, kissed Joan with such a tenderness that rendered all words of love obsolete. Joan kissed her back, willing herself to feel the contentment that this gentle moment usually brought yet it were as if a veil had been drawn between them, transparent and nebulous … and impenetrable. Breaking the kiss she pushed her forehead against Maggie's, “oh, Maggie…..” She suddenly felt poised on the edge of an unseen precipice, her life halted by an uncommon hesitation, a nameless indecision. She felt the tight numbness settle over her again, constricting her emotions, and she drew back busying herself with her seatbelt and needlessly readjusting the perfectly positioned mirrors.

 

Joan looked tired Maggie thought, her strong features were pinched, her usually lustrous skin dull - the delicate palette of ivory and rose was tinged with the pallor of a dying man, and the silver ribbons at her temples seemed thicker than before, unruly white strands corkscrewing from her hairline to flare in the sunlight in an erratic nimbus of glowing filaments. This awkwardness was to be expected, reasoned Maggie as she buckled herself in without comment. She could see that Joan was struggling but knew from experience that now was not the right time to voice her concerns. Joan would let her know when it was.

 

As Joan slipped into the stream of traffic Maggie broke the silence.  “That’s it then, you're a respectable member of society again?”

“So the Police say...”

“I bet Vera's pissed off.”

“Undoubtedly.” A bitter smile flickered in the corner of Joan's mouth.

“Have you seen her since…?”

“Ha! She hasn’t the courage for that! Besides, she has nothing to gloat about any more, and her new beau will be keeping her busy….” She spread her long fingers on the rich leather of the wheel and took a fresh grip as she shifted up a gear.

“Oh, yes, Mister Stewart,” drawled Maggie. “It didn’t take her long did it?”

“Ah, well, she’s mistress of her own destiny now apparently,” said Joan archly, “which is why she’s been demoted and the Deputy Governor role is currently vacant.”

“Not that you care of course!”

Joan turned her head and stared at Maggie in consternation. “Of course I care… god knows whom the Board will ship in to fill the Deputy slot now Mr. Jackson has transferred to Woodridge!”

 

Maggie chuckled to herself at Joan's single mindedness. “Still,” she said soberly glancing at Joan, “I imagine it still rankles a little knowing that it could have turned out so differently,” she raised an eyebrow at Joan's curt harrumph, “but then, you can’t win them all, Joan, sometimes you just have to accept that mistakes were made and move on – no recriminations. But I’m amazed they let her stay on in Corrections after what happened.”

“I understand that she blackmailed Channing.” She smiled thinly as Maggie pursed her lips approvingly. “How ironic it is that she would fight so hard to cling to a job that she’s so ill-suited to. And even more ironic that the one person she now allegedly loves and trusts most in the world is an amoral criminal whose greed led to the collapse of my trial and, ultimately, to her own downfall.”

“Ah, I wondered whose services you’d negotiated for that job. So, when do you resume your post?”

“Not for another six weeks.” Her fingers tightened on the wheel. Six more weeks of freewheeling until she could immerse herself in the blessed order of work again!

“Six weeks? How come? Surely Wentworth needs a proper governor in the chair, not some caretaker?”

“They’re making me take all my accrued leave before I return. At least the place is in good hands – they appointed Bob Moran for the interim period.”

 

The low sun sliced through the windscreen and bathed the two women in liquid gold. Maggie squinted and flipped the visor down. “So how did Vera cope with having you as a remand prisoner?”

“She didn’t!” Joan gave a low laugh, “oh you should have seen her, Maggie, it was truly pitiful. Never have I seen such a show of blustering bravado backed up with nothing more than an affirmation band and bitter resentment.”

“Well, you did put her in a difficult position, Joan,” Maggie smirked, “all those months training her to follow your orders and then, when it’s _you_ that has to follow _her_ orders, when she finally has some measure of control over you….”

“…. she’s unable to act out her deepest desires! Ha! It was highly entertaining to watch her vindictive attempts at dominance, Maggie, she so badly lacked the imagination or power to play me at my own game; everything she did was by the book, within the letter of the rule; growing wet with every minor victory,” Joan paused momentarily, thinking of the humiliating metaphorical hoops Vera had forced her through in order to access even her basic rights, “pouting at every defeat and her jaw tightening until her teeth creaked. She always did take everything way too personally.”

“Sounds to me like she missed you.”

“Doesn’t it? You’ve no idea how many times she found it necessary to supervise my strip searches or to be passing my charming glass-fronted cell when I was changing! Poor bitch!”

“I bet!” chuckled Maggie, “and I bet you gave her quite a show too. Reminded her of what she was missing?” She turned and grinned evilly at Joan.

“All within the guidelines, Maggie. It wasn’t me breathing heavily at the end of it!”

 

***

 

The shadows descended as the garage door closed on the final rays of the setting sun. The low purr of the engine died and silence settled on them as they sat in the rich leather interior of Joan's sleek black car. Unclipping her seatbelt Maggie turned to her lover whose pensive profile was delicately illuminated by the soft glow of the instrument panel. Long seconds crawled by as she waited for Joan to look at her. Eventually the lights from the binnacle died and they were engulfed in gloom.

Now that she was home Joan felt unsettled. “I’m sorry, Maggie,” she said sadly, “everything just sort of …. crept up on me for a moment.” She had been watched so closely and for so long that Maggie's tender gaze almost seemed no different from the probing stares she had faced day in and day out for all those months. She knew that there was something wrong with her, something was missing. The worst had passed but still she felt like she was living in a vacuum; she could find no joy in music, no depth to textures or flavours, there was no escape to be found in her books and she gained no sanctuary in her memories. She had won against all the odds so why did she feel so hollow and jumpy with the one person whom she truly trusted? Why could she not quell the needle-sharp sliver of panic that insidiously burrowed its way through her thoughts, infecting them with a paranoid malaise? 

 

Maggie tested the moment… “Joan, I spoke with Vera whilst you were on Remand – I just wanted to make sure that you were OK after you’d been discharged from Sinclair...?”

Joan closed her eyes against the dark and sighed. So, she knew. “Not yet, Maggie. Later.” With a deep breath she sidestepped her feelings and focused on her duties as a host, the interior light bathed them in a cold glow as she opened her door and slid out to retrieve the luggage from the boot. Maggie smiled ruefully after her special girl and eased her old bones from the deep seat. She wanted to take Joan in her arms and soothe away the horrors of recent months but she knew it would take hell of a lot more than that to set Joan right.

 

The interior of Joan's home was pristine, every surface sterilised to surgical standards and beyond, she had systematically deep cleansed every room in the four weeks since her release, obliterating every trace of the Police’s prying eyes and fingers – and Shayne’s slap-dash attempts at housekeeping. The only thing that couldn’t be disinfected or polished to within an inch of its life was a bouquet of yellow tea roses adorning the dining table; their febrile petals gradually unfurling to reveal honey coloured stamen and their rich scent charging the neutral atmosphere with the aroma of heady summer evenings. But as Maggie looked around she could sense that that something was not quite right, something was out of kilter and it took a few minutes to realise what it was – the vase was off centre on the table, a cushion lay abandoned in the middle of the sofa and the kettle was at the wrong angle, handle still pointing towards the user instead of aesthetically positioned parallel to the wall.


	2. Chapter 2

Maggie prepared dinner.  Joan watched expressionlessly from the sofa as the older woman pierced the oiled meat and studded it with garlic and rosemary from Joan's own small herb garden, and she brought her glass to her mouth, ice brushing against her lips as she swallowed the last of the vodka. She poured another inch into the crystal tumbler and swirled the icy liquid briefly before swallowing it back and reaching for another refill. Famous as they were for their comfortable silences, this was something different – they both knew that this silence presaged uncomfortable truths. One look at Joan's eyes and Maggie knew something bad was brewing; as always in times of emotional stress, they seemed darker – her irises seemingly growing larger, blacker under her heavy lids.

Joan slowly turned her head and stared blankly at the silent TV screen as the scrolling US newsreel showed images of closeted neo-fascists singing the praises of a fatuous over-privileged orange prick in a bird’s nest wig. Unpleasant! She flicked through the channels until she found some natural world programme with fabulously coloured deep sea dwellers sliding through the velvet darkness and allowed their ethereal iridescence to wash over her pale features wrapping her arms tight about her cold body.

 

They ate in near silence, or rather, Maggie ate and Joan picked at the succulent pink meat and eventually pushed her plate away virtually untouched. She did, however, find it possible to consume three quarters of the Bordeaux whilst evading Maggie's worried glances, her eyes sliding away as soon as they met her mentor’s. Her mind was a whirl of desire and need and affection and, she fought hard to accept it, angry shame; all of them butting up against an invisible shield that blocked all but the curtest words from her throat.

Maggie held her tongue during the meal but her heart cried out with anguish. Joan was no stranger to physical or psychological combat but what she was experiencing now, Maggie knew, wasn’t battle fatigue; she was grieving.

 

Illuminated by the light of the back rooms and the flickering TV they sat in the lounge, Maggie on the sofa and Joan curled at her feet nursing a large measure of vodka. She tensed as Maggie began to gently stroke her hair then laid her cheek against the solid leg and gave herself over to the familiar loving touch; inexplicably she suddenly wanted to cry with happiness.  Maggie pulled the band from the functional pony tail and spread the shining wave over her thighs. “You seem unusually subdued, Joan. Aren’t you pleased that it’s all done with?”

“I suppose so.” Joan gulped the last of her drink and reached for the bottle, squinting in surprise when it came up empty.

“Joan,” Maggie hesitated, “what is it, love?”

Joan gave a non-committal grunt and levered herself to her feet. She swayed unsteadily on her long legs and then crossed to the freezer for another drink. Could she tell Maggie everything that had happened, everything she felt - however irrational - and still be herself at the end of it? Could she trust herself to stop there? So much had been jarred loose, stirred up from the murky depths of her past, things she hadn’t dwelt on for years, things she found hard to admit to herself. In that moment she craved the tremendous calm that had come from those three small tablets of Rohypnol.

 

Clutching her nearly full glass to her chest Joan stopped briefly by the small decanter table and returned with a large snifter of whiskey dangling from her pale fingers. “Have a drink with me, Maggie.” The dark amber spirit sloshed alarmingly as she thrust the tumbler at the seated woman.

“OK, but come and sit with me.” Maggie patted the seat beside her and pulled Joan downwards.

“Cheers!” Joan took a long swallow and threw herself against the sofa back.

“What are we toasting then? To justice being done?”

“Pfft!” exclaimed Joan scornfully, her heavy head lolling as she rolled her bloodshot eyes. “Fucking travesty!” Her features abruptly softened and she gripped Maggie's gnarled fingers, her damp eyes glittering in the low light. “To us,” she whispered staring at her intently, “to you, to always – no matter what.”

Maggie raised her glass. “To you. To us. To always.” She breathed in the rich fumes and allowed the peaty burn to wash down her throat the set her glass down and began to softly massage the scarred hand that she held in hers, easing the smooth ridges of tight tissue that encased wasted muscles. She watched Joan watching her hands.

 

She hadn’t been touched so gently or without revulsion for months; Joan stared for long minutes without comment then suddenly leaned in and softly kissed the side of Maggie's mouth. She raised her hand, still gripping her glass, and nudged Maggie's jaw until they were facing each other. Closing her fluttering eyelids, Joan traced the shape of Maggie's lips with her own as a welcome surge of hot desire roared through her. Her head swam as she banged her glass on the low table and straddled her lover, her body prickling with a sickening burn as she kissed Maggie with a forcefulness that took their breath away. Maggie's hands fluttered on Joan's thighs, her natural inclination tempered by Joan's heightened emotional state. She had to let Joan dictate the pace as best she could.

Joan's throat thickened as she futilely sought to pierce the veil that had been smothering her for months, her kisses grew softer and she pulled Maggie's hands up to her breasts, encouraging her to squeeze them as she ground her hips into her broad lap, desperate to fuel the dying ember of lust.

 

Panicked tears welled at the thought that all of this was falsehood! Pity on Maggie's part, wishful thinking on hers! None of it genuine! Her movements stilled and she pulled back from the person she loved most in the world, pushing wrinkled hands away and silently getting to her feet. She stood looking vacantly over Maggie's head at the far wall, uncertain what to do next. She took a few steps towards the kitchen and stopped, her long-fingered hands twitching as she tried to order her thoughts.

 

Joan started as Maggie's arm slipped around her shoulder and she allowed herself to be guided back to the low sofa. Maggie hugged her tight and twined her arm in Joan's as they sat. “Vera told me, Joan. She said you’d been attacked by the women – seemed quite put out, actually,” she muttered disparagingly, “almost embarrassed – she was convinced that you’d been ganged but told me that you insisted otherwise.” She felt Joan stiffen. “Joan, what happened?” Maggie's voice was uncharacteristically small as she turned to look at her. “Joan, what did they do to you? Tell me … please?”

 

Joan stared into the distance. Her voice, when it came, lacked its usual rich timbre. “You know as well as I do that rape has been employed as a tactic in warfare for centuries.” She took a steadying breath and gave a stilted jerk of her chin. “They would have likely killed me if I’d fought them so I chose the lesser of two evils; I may have appeared to have lost that battle but trust me, it advanced my position.” She beat the air with her left index finger, “they thought that they could break me but they failed; they could never touch _me_ , I’m too strong for them! I’m strong! Too strong!” Maggie wondered just who Joan was trying to convince. Joan continued, “they thought that they could break me but I showed them what strength is!” Her nostrils flared as she squared her shoulders in defiance.

“So you _were_ ganged….”

“Technically yes.” Joan slowly turned her eyes on Maggie who shuddered at the depth of their blankness. “Typically it had nothing to do with sex – it was an outright show of power driven by their fear of me – but they assumed that I would crumble because they measured me against their own limited existence; I suspect that it was partly an attempt to deter me from addressing Gambaro’s false accusations but mainly it was because I am the Governor.” Her chin lifted in pride as she remembered what once was and what would be again. “When it comes down to it, my body is merely a vessel. If you maim me it doesn’t make me any less of who I am,” she held up her left hand for emphasis, the tight skin a dark, mottled pink, “if you violate my so-called womanhood it doesn’t diminish me. And the scars remind us that we have endured, that we have survived, that we have overcome.”

 

Maggie drew a leg up beneath her and shifted to face Joan. “That’s a brave philosophy but I know you, Joan; I know that that you shut things out, refuse to acknowledge anything ever happened,” she gripped Joan's fingers tightly, “but I also know that they have a tendency to resurface and show themselves in damaging ways.” Maggie stroked Joan's slack cheek. “Joan, you don’t have to be strong for me, love, you know that. I love you, I accept you – I always have and I always will – _always_ , and I know that you're hurting.” Joan looked down into her lap, lips pressed tightly together to stop them trembling. “And it’s OK to make mistakes, to hurt, and even to fear – none of that makes you weak, not if you acknowledge it, not if you deal with it. You know that, Joan. Own your pain, don’t let it fester. You have Shayne to consider now. How can you be honest with him if you can’t be honest with yourself? Or, at least stop lying to yourself…” she saw tears well in Joan's tired eyes and felt her own prick hotly.

 

It didn’t matter what she knew, what she had been taught or what she believed – Joan’s mind would not let her deny that an intrinsic part of her sexuality had been violently and brutally violated and she hated how she felt; hated that she was so affected, hated that she was pushing Maggie away.

 

“You’re where you are now because of Jianna,” Maggie continued softly. “There was a time when I thought that you had come to terms with her death but then you crossed paths with Will Jackson again…..Vera told me what really happened to Jianna, Joan,” Maggie's throaty voice cracked, “I can’t even begin to imagine how you feel knowing that…” her words tailed off, the truth too painful to say. Maggie’s eyes clouded as an uncomfortable thought occurred to her, “is that partly why you endured the ganging Joan? As some form of twisted self-punishment for Jianna’s death?”

“You don’t get to talk about Jianna, Maggie…” she growled warningly, her failure to save Jianna caused her to die a little every time the restraining wall of that memory was breached. It was the deadness inside her that had absorbed the horrors of the assault, growing more bloated and poisonous with each jeering, agonising thrust.

 

“Ok, I’ll talk about Nils. How are you going to rationalise that?” Maggie bent forward and peered into Joan's face, Joan wouldn’t meet her gaze. “Joan?”

“It was him or me, Maggie. He knew that from the moment he decided to sign that statement.”

“But still, he was your oldest friend…..”

Straightening up Joan twisted her neck to face Maggie, the iciest look of self-righteousness she could muster on her face. “He crossed me. He knew the risks, hell he was compensated handsomely enough for his services. And if he’d performed them better he’d still be here. Friendship can only be stretched so far.”

 

“And if Vera had performed better?” Maggie asked. “You miss Vera don’t you, Joan? She’d become a friend too, hadn’t she? Or at least someone you could trust?”

Joan's lip curled. “She betrayed me, Maggie!” her dark eyes narrowed as she wondered what was coming next.

“No, you feel betrayed but that’s not really what happened is it? You're angry because you let yourself be seduced by the idea of love and overlooked her fundamental failings. You _were_ unusually fond of her weren’t you? Perhaps even on the verge of falling for her?” A flash of pain tightened the corners of Joan's eyes further. “It’s a shame that she lacked courage and that she couldn’t measure up in the deep thinking department, but that’s not betrayal, Joan. It’s just how some people are, it’s human nature to shy away from different ways of thinking, to settle for the safety of convention.” She stroked Joan's balled fist, “remember how hard it was for you to overcome years of conventional thinking and happily embrace your nature?” She felt Joan's fingers loosen a little and slipped her hand into them. “Instead of those Olivia books you should have given her a copy of Tacticus or Sun Tzu! Maybe then she would have had an inkling as to how to run a prison efficiently… maybe then she would have understood why you wouldn’t open the gates, but misery and spite are a hard habit for a woman like Vera to break.”

Joan shook her head, a disbelieving smile twisting her mouth.

 

Maggie's tone became matter of fact. “Let it out, Joan. Shout and scream, kick a puppy if you have to! Just rid yourself of whatever’s choking you!”

“I’m over it. I’ve done my crying, Maggie.”

“Have you, Joan? Have you even allowed yourself a moment to dwell on anything that’s happened in the last nine months? Because judging by tonight that’s exactly what you haven’t done.” Maggie pulled Joan's hands into her lap, forcing her to twist her rigid body and face her, she squeezed them tightly and said softly “You don’t have to keep everything under control, my darling, not with me. You’ve been subjected to an extraordinary ordeal; to things no one could ever plan for,” she paused as Joan's fatigue darkened lids screwed shut and the corners of her mouth drew downwards. “You're not expected to have emerged unscathed. Do you believe me? I would never place those demands on you.” 

 

After Jianna’s death she’d found it necessary to cauterise her damaging emotions. The scars that remained were, at times, tight and uncomfortable, but tonight they screamed in agony and threatened to split wide, threatened to disgorge the years of repressed pain, guilty joy and self-doubt. She opened her mouth to deny Maggie’s claim but words failed her and a desperate keening filled the darkened room as Joan finally allowed the enormity of what had happened to her over the years escape from the locked cells she had so fiercely guarded from childhood. Maggie rocked the crying woman in her strong arms, tears welling in her hazel eyes as she felt her lover’s pain consume her.


	3. Chapter 3

“Oh Maggie! It hurt! It hurt so much! They had their filthy hands on me! Inside me! ….” Joan shuddered at the memory of the cold, grime caked tiles, “on that dirty floor… I, I tried so hard to rise above it, I’m better trained than most but, but I, I….” she dissolved into heaving soundless sobs, curling into a tight ball as she fell into Maggie's embrace, wanting to be gathered up completely. Years of denying herself any self-pity had left her unprepared for the tumult of sorrow and recriminations that spewed from her locked down places like burning bile.  Slowly, the flood subsided and she lay exhausted and hollow in Maggie's arms, her face stiff with dried tears.

“Why didn’t you visit me?” As soon as the words were out of her mouth she regretted them. “I’m sorry, Maggie, that was selfish of me…”

“Would you have seen me if I had?” They both knew that she would have refused.

 

“I, I was at their mercy, Maggie. They could have killed me…. part of me wishes that they had…” she admitted in a small whisper.

“Don’t ever talk like that, Joan. You're better than that!”

“Am I? Have you ever been stripped of everything that makes you _you_ until all that remains is….?” her words tailed off, unable to describe the unreality she’d felt. “I don’t even remember most of Sinclair!”

“Maybe that’s a blessing.”

“No! they filled me full of poison and killed my thoughts, replaced them with somebody else’s.”

“Joan, you were in a dark place,” Maggie kissed her forehead then rested her cheek against Joan's glossy crown, “they don’t know you like I do, they were only trying to help the best they knew how…”

“Ha! And you know what? I wanted to be helped – until I discovered the price….” Joan's face grew hard as she recalled the moment the fog had cleared and she recognised Foster for the predator he was. “That’s when I realised there was nothing wrong with me that needed their brand of ‘fixing’, that I had to regain my life on my terms. So I fixed him!” She paused and took a deep shuddering breath. “I let him fuck me, Maggie, two sweaty minutes of pushing and shoving in exchange for enough leverage to leave that place.” Her reddened eyes glazed and she picked at her scarred hand.

“Your doctor?”

Joan chin drew down into her chest. “I had to do it! Lower myself to the basest level.” The sour, briny smell of semen filled her nostrils. “I … prostituted myself.”

 

Joan's confession chilled Maggie’s heart. She took a deep shuddering breath and shut her eyes tightly against anguished tears. How desperately driven Joan must have been to endure the revulsion of that man’s touch in return for a different set of bars. She hugged the limp woman tighter to her chest, filled with a feeling of fierce protectiveness. “But you came back, Joan. You made it. You beat them all!”

“But at what price? I don’t feel like me, Maggie.” Joan straightened and looked pleadingly into her mentor’s eyes. “I locked away so much of myself from the insult of incarceration and it’s not coming back! I feel like a, a … I don’t know… like a ghost! Outside of myself, always looking in. Fuck! How clichéd is that?” If only she’d had some measure of that third-person clarity when all of this had started…

 

She stood up and, dragging her fingers over swollen eyes, crossed unsteadily to the freezer. Maggie watched silently as Joan poured four fingers of vodka into a broad based tumbler and knocked it back. She started with shock as Joan hurled the empty glass against the wall. “I was a fool! A prideful fool! I allowed myself to underestimate them all. You Idiot!” she berated herself. “Too fucking proud to see the cracks… Always so sure of yourself!” She spun and heaved the bottle at the French doors. Displaced drops of condensation sparkled in the downlights before the thick bottle disintegrated against the frame, shards of glass and spirit exploding into the charged atmosphere.

 

Her dark head rolled on her long neck as she gazed blearily at her surroundings and her thoughts switched track. “I surround myself with these trappings of respectability but I don’t belong!” Joan staggered over to the dining table and seized a chair, raising it over her head before sweeping the crystal vase of yellow roses across the room. The chaos of glass and petals felt amazingly liberating.

She attacked the bare table with the metal chair, inflicting deep scrapes and gouges as the woven steel bent under the force of her mindless fury. Its mangled frame clattered against the courtyard window but she wasn’t sated, she wrenched another chair from under the table and swung around wildly. The spindly legs caught against the corner of the kitchen island and the meticulously engineered metal bucked in her grasp. Joan let it tumble over the glossy white counter and lurched towards the sideboard.

 

Pushing her deshevelled mane from her face she drunkenly surveyed the eclectic items on its polished surface and, snatching up the fencing mask, thoughtfully rolled it in her palms. “I hold onto pain and tell myself that it’s respect! This was my father’s.” Her face contorted in rage, lip curled to reveal her canines, her narrowed eyes were full of dark, sparkling malevolence. “Bastard!” The mask fell from her grip and Joan savagely stamped on the egg of steel mesh. The sturdy gauze buckled and split under her heel, its carefully crafted curve forever destroyed. Joan paid no heed to the jagged wire slicing deep into her naked foot as she crushed the symbol of their connected lives and the aged white leather cowl grew bloody, its cracked surface absorbing her scarlet life force as it flowed unchecked.

 

“And this!” She tenderly traced the figure of her young self, standing next to her father at her first fencing competition. She was smiling but had she been happy? She remembered feeling relief and pride at her victory - but happiness? Her eyes narrowed as they flicked to the image of her father and she flipped the photograph face down on the polished wood but she still saw him. Without warning her left hand shot out and flung the picture into the far corner.

 

Maggie appeared by Bob’s old table and rounded the corner. “Joan, Joan love,” she implored, “come and sit down.”

“Why? So you can console me?” Joan sneered.

She walked towards Joan, lifting the stricken chair onto the ruined table to reach her. “So you can calm down. Come on, love.” She held out her hand and Joan found herself taking it and allowing herself to be led into the lounge. She stopped as she caught sight of the large mirror at the foot of the stair and her fingers trailed through Maggie’s as she padded over to it.

Joan inspected her image for a moment or two, squinting this way and that at her stricken self. “Vanity! It’s a sin isn’t it? My father was vain.” Joan's face contorted and she scrubbed her palms over the malleable skin as if she were trying to rearrange her features. When she opened her eyes she fastened onto Maggie's reflection, “he hated me, Maggie. He hated me because I look like her. He punished me for the sins of my mother! He punished me for his own shortcomings. He punished me because I couldn’t conform….because I can’t conform.”

 

Without warning she subjected her reflection to a barrage of well-aimed punches, teeth bared in a snarl. “You're weak!” she barked at herself. “You're useless! You can’t be loved!”  Joan emphasised her cruel words with wild, flailing hand gestures. “You're unworthy of anyone’s love. You freak!” Blood spattered across the unblemished wall as she harangued herself, listing her character flaws in hoarse staccato.

 

Maggie understood that Joan needed the freedom to emerge from the ashes of her own private destruction and had no issue with her need to lay waste to her ordered surroundings – it was only natural, but when Joan began to damage herself Maggie was compelled to step in and stop her. She rushed over to Joan's shaking form and wrapped her arms around her tense body, forcing Joan's fist to her chest. “You're none of those things Joan and you know it!” she muttered fiercely.

Joan tore herself away and stepped up to the ruined mirror, oblivious to the shards that crunched beneath her soles. Her long fingers traced the plain frame as she examined her own gaze in the fractured glass; her smooth forehead met the web of cracks and Joan smiled thinly as they razored into her hot skin, the icy incisions calming her as she laid her cheek to the silvered surface and laughed hollowly. “Do I?” she leaned heavily against the wall and rolled her body to face Maggie. Bright beads of blood welled and trickled fitfully down the curves of her strong features.

“Those are your father’s words – not yours.”

 

Her handsome face contorted in a grimace of pain, dry lips drawn back in a rictus “Am I not my father’s daughter?” she asked forlornly. “I’m just like him Maggie and I hate it! I, I can’t share what I feel inside, I’m needlessly cruel and demanding. His unpredictability runs through me like a burning wire…” her voice rose in an anguished howl, “… I’ve done things that are downright dangerous and I don’t know why!” She whirled round and grabbed hold of the hall table, overturning it as she screamed “I’m broken – just like him!”

 

Maggie reached for her but was rebuffed as Joan stumbled towards the lounge, her shuffling feet leaving bloody smears on the glowing wooden floor. She halted in front of the large panes separating the room from the courtyard and studied her reflection sadly. “Look at me! This body was once mine to command - but no longer.” She slapped her cheek and turned her worried face towards where Maggie stood by the drift of mirrored shards. “I know that just happened but I can’t feel it.” She hauled her shirt over her head and raked her sharp nails across her chest. The scratches blazed white against her flushed skin before turning a livid red. “I can’t feel it, Maggie, I, I… oh fuck, Maggie, there’s nothing there!” The wild-eyed woman scored her abdomen, drawing blood in a feverish desperation to reconnect with the present. Joan's face crumpled and Maggie found herself blinking back tears. She swallowed hard as she forced down a rising flood of panic at the depth of Joan's despair – her anguished self-loathing cut Maggie to the quick and she felt suddenly so very helpless and ill-equipped to rescue her.

 

Joan’s anger welled again and her features screwed themselves into an ugly mask as she cast her bitter gaze over the décor. Her bloodshot eyes fell on the fossilised egg and she suddenly found herself standing under the high, narrow window, the lump of smooth cold stone in her hands. “Ha!” She sneered her hoarse voice full of self-derision, “this just about sums up my life – look at it, so full of potential but neglected and side-lined, dead inside - preserved for posterity as little more than a curiosity. She hefted the petrified egg in her hand and tossed it into the middle of the glass coffee table, it tumbled through the thick glass and lay inert in a nest of vitreous crystals. “And that’s what happens when my life collides with others’.” She whispered in a fit of sudden melancholia. Tears rolled down her haggard cheeks and she threw her head back, wiping her nose with her scarred hand. “It doesn’t matter if I love them, hate them or hardly know them…. I cause them damage.” She moaned dully.

 

“That’s not true, Joan,” Maggie said from across the room. “You are the best thing in my life, Joan, my one constant,” she followed Joan's bloody path and halted by the sofa, fingers plucking at the stitched leather. “You are not responsible for other people’s misfortunes, not unless they deserve them. But you are responsible for the happiness that has filled my life for the last thirty years.” The old woman’s tender gaze shone with love and honesty.

Scrubbing her face dry of tears Joan mulled the statement over. “All these years and you still love me, even though I hurt you with my selfishness. Why?”

In a cracked voice Maggie replied “You might as well ask why water is wet. You don’t question something that just _is_.”

 

Heedless of the stray glass cubes that littered the Persian rug Joan returned to the tall windows and leaned into her reflection, her head hanging between braced arms as her palms flattened against the smooth coolness. A calmness seemed to descend on her and her taut muscles slackened, her black eyes staring vacantly at the imported shingle that bordered the darkened courtyard. When she looked up again her face was hard and calculating, her voice like chilled steel. “I will kill them you know. Gamabaro, Radic, the other goon, Barker – and I shall take great satisfaction in it.”

“I’ll help you if you’d like.”

Joan smiled tiredly at her mentor “I know you will. Thank you.” Taking halting steps towards Maggie she stretched out her mottled hand and pulled the older woman close. Maggie hugged her tightly and into her crinkled neck Joan whispered “I love you but I don’t know where to go from here.” 


	4. Chapter 4

Thin scarlet smears contrasted starkly against the perfect sparkling whiteness of the bathroom, Joan's blood on the walls marked her unsteady progress towards the shower as did her trail of broken footprints that ended at the tangle of shed clothing. She couldn’t bring herself to look at the swirl of reddened water as it wound its way to the drain and instead stared blankly at the wall as scalding water beat on her bowed head. It worried her that the bathroom door wasn’t locked.

 

Business-like, Maggie stepped into the steam filled box of glass and tile and began to lather shampoo into Joan's thick mane. She took care to maintain a gap between their naked bodies as her fingertips gently massaged Joan's scalp, following the backward tilt as Joan lifted her face to the spray and opened her mouth in a strangled, ragged, almost inaudible howl, her brain too exhausted to generate more; it racked her sagging frame as she allowed Maggie's undemanding touch to coax her out of the swollen numbness that had been suffocating her for so long. The steady rhythmic touch generated a strange, fizzing sensation that spread to her cheeks and forehead and it took some time for Joan's brain to process it correctly – it was relief.

“Rinse,” ordered the older woman dropping the thick rope of Joan’s hair over her shoulder and, noticing how Joan was just beginning to favour her badly lacerated foot, lifting her heel to relieve the pressure a little, quickly sponged her back and shoulders with a rich herbal gel. “OK, Joan, love, take your time to finish off and then wait for me,” she indicated the bentwood chair in the corner and laid the sponge in Joan's unresisting hand.

 

Downstairs Maggie opened the patio door and lit a much-needed cigarette. She tightened her robe and ran her hands through her short grey hair making it stand in disordered tufts as she filtered through the traumatic events of this evening. Not for the first time she cursed Jianna’s name. If only Joan had been able to accept that it hadn’t been real, if only she, Maggie, had been able to accept that it was… She sighed heavily. The whole situation was a tangled mess that had generated the only rift between them that ever refused to be mended. She knew that if Joan had been able to confide in her then maybe she’d have been able to help her achieve the desired destruction of Will Jackson and Joan could have moved on.

If - bloody if! she thought savagely, the conjugator of hope, of doubt and hesitation, and of missed opportunities. She stubbed her cigarette out contemptuously and drew in a deep lungful of cold late winter air before lighting another.

But, even more, she brooded as she blew smoke rings into the night, she cursed Ivan’s name. He had ruined his daughter; unlike most fathers he had exposed her to the staggering horrors of humanity whilst protecting her from its warmth and affection, he had taught her to know pain but had denied her the capacity to love openly.

 

A calculating look settled on her lined face and she lifted her chin, lips pursed and eyes narrowed whilst she considered how best to transform her thoughts into actions. Maggie pulled her phone from her pocket and squinted through the smoke as she scrolled down the contacts list. She nodded once and tapped the screen, her eyes shining with devious malice.

“Cynthia? It’s Maggie Ferguson. How are you my dear?”

Her face was split by a wide grin – the first since she’d arrived. “Excellent! Look, I have a favour to ask.”

She chuckled at Cynthia’s predictable reply. “Trust me, I’ll make it worth your while! Now, I want you to access the files for Lucia Gambaro and Estella Radic. What I’m after are the personal details we hold for their family and close associates, particularly any that are banged up right now.”

“Yeah well there’s no immediate rush, I’m gonna be busy for the next couple of days, but as soon as you can, eh?”

“Marvellous! Well, I’ll let you get back to it – can’t keep the lady waiting now can we?”

 She smiled with grim satisfaction as she imagined those animals’ terror mounting with each message from home they received telling of death, destruction or derangement. Even before Joan stepped foot back in Wentworth they would know that they were being hunted….

 

Under the cone of relentless spray Joan complied with Maggie's instructions. But she was exhausted. Her drunkenness was at its peak and she was fighting to stay upright on her damaged feet. With a wet slap she let herself fall backwards against the cold tile and gracelessly slid to the raw slate floor. Then with the extreme concentration of a child learning to tie their shoelaces Joan poured shower gel onto the sponge, carefully set the bottle aside, and made a valiant attempt of scrubbing herself clean with clumsy, uncoordinated sweeps of her dully throbbing hands.

 

As she washed between her legs the lather changed colour. Her probing fingers came away covered in a rusty brown sludge that thinned to nothing under the hot water; as a woman of a certain age her periods had become more erratic but they had stopped completely during the long months of assessment, remand and bail. Joan felt another wave of relief flow over her, she had feared herself irretrievably damaged despite her gynaecologist’s assurances that she had healed well; she slumped against the cool tiles as she remembered the seemingly ceaseless flow of scarlet that had bathed her thighs and buttocks that day and how it had been her enemy, Smith, that had had the wits and compassion to help her. She wondered if she would have been able to do the same if their positions had been reversed.

 

The mirror was fogged with steam yet she turned her face from her hazy reflection as she inserted the tampon – she hadn’t touched herself this intimately since before the terrible fire and she found herself tensing with the introduction of the dry cotton plug. Taking a deep breath Joan forced herself to relax and chided herself for being so melodramatic, the tampon slid home and Joan wiped away the last smears of congealing blood with a wet towel. The irony that she was using Vera's emergency cache of tampons was not lost on her.

 

**************

 

Flicking her butt onto the neighbour’s deck Maggie re-entered the house and set a pan of milk to slowly warm as she swept up the myriad of glass fragments that littered the bare floors. Her eyebrows rose in surprise at the contents of the recycling bin: it was full of vodka bottles and little more. “Oh, Joan,” sighed Maggie sadly as she showered them with the icy looking shards.  She whistled as she surveyed the contents of Joan's impressive first aid cabinet and made her swift selection from the neatly labelled boxes, piling it all onto a tray and adding a couple of stainless steel kidney bowls to the array for good measure.   

Spooning Milo into the pan of hot milk Maggie smiled at Joan’s contrariness; for all her sophisticated tastes she still kept an old favourite like this in reserve for times of need. She poured the fragrant brew into a thermos, placed two mugs on the tray and carried the whole lot upstairs.

 

Joan was waiting for her; she sat cloaked in her robe, hair wound loosely into a towel, and watched blearily as Maggie set the tray down on the vanity and laid its contents out ready for action. She reached out her hands for Maggie, robe slipping unnoticed from her bare shoulders, and wrapped her arms around her broad rump, wordlessly pressing her face into the soft warmth of Maggie’s rounded belly. Joan drew strength and solace from this solid, unyielding contact and tightened her hold.

Tenderly, Maggie cradled Joan's turbaned head to her and rested her other hand reassuringly between hot shoulder blades, her thumb stroking the tense muscles that lay beneath the flawless skin. Her entire being sang with her love for her special girl but she fought back tears of helpless sorrow for the trials she had endured, and the dark flame of revenge flickered coldly around her heart. 

 

When she was sure that she wouldn’t dissolve into a blubbering mess – she’d be no use to either of them if that happened - Maggie gently loosened Joan's grip and laid her hands in her lap. She settled the robe around her shoulders once more and poured them both a mug of Milo. Joan looked suspiciously at the steaming mug as Maggie thrust it into her hands. “Drink it, it’s good for you. Full of nutrients!”

The rich, malty smell filtered through her senses and vague memories of childhood bedtimes with her mother flitted behind her eyes. She took a sip and jerked away licking her scalded lip. “It’s hot!” she gasped

“It’s as it should be,” replied Maggie, “now drink it!” She set about scrubbing her hands and nails with disinfectant as Joan blew on the milky brown liquid and gingerly began to take small mouthfuls.

 

Sitting motionless, Maggie sterilised the cuts on her face and applied a slick of ointment to the whisker thin wounds murmuring “you’ll be as beautiful as ever in no time!” Maggie cupped her unblemished cheek in her palm and Joan squinted up into her loving face. Her lips flickered with a sad smile and her eyes remained fixed on Maggie as the older woman crouched to inspect the gouges that criss-crossed her midriff. Most of them were already scabbing over but blood still oozed slowly from the deepest wounds. Donning a pair of sterile gloves Maggie swabbed iodine along the scratches and dressed the worst of them, her sure and gentle touch soothing Joan's quivering skin. How different it felt being ministered to by someone who was actually invested in her recovery for more than professional reasons; her weary eyes were smiling as she raised her mug to her twitching lips and she released a happy sigh through her nose into the moist heat.

 

Peeling unresisting fingers from the warmth of the mug Maggie took Joan's right hand and inspected her swollen knuckles for serious damage – she was handy with a needle and thread but a severed tendon was beyond her abilities given the equipment available – and fresh blood welled as she probed for glass splinters with a pair of delicate tweezers. It should have hurt like a bastard but to Joan, the gashes were merely sore and raised little more than a grimace from her as Maggie irrigated, dried and taped them closed with butterfly strips.

 

“You don’t have to do this, Maggie.” Joan whispered as Maggie folded her hand to her chest and drew the edges of her robe together, belting it shut.

“I think I do, Joan,” said Maggie and touched Joan's cheek with the back of her curled fingers. “If I don’t look after you then who will, eh?”  
Joan's bloodshot eyes flickered over Maggie's face and her lips tightened as she fought back tears. She was right – who else did she have? She’d learned to live a solitary life, it helped that she was perfectly at ease in her own company, and it felt odd to physically have someone there to rely on. “I’d have managed, I always do.”

“Joan, stop it!” admonished Maggie curtly, her tone softened, “we all need someone. I need you and you need me.”

 

Hot rivers spilled from Joan's gritty eyes as her lips pulled back and in a cracked voice she moaned “oh, I do, Maggie, I do… I’m so sorry, I, I...” she was incapable of finding any words that came close to describing the battle still raging inside her at that moment.

Maggie took the mug from her and gathered her in her strong embrace. “Shh, shh, shh, shh,” she soothed, rocking the tearful woman, “come on now, you have nothing to apologise for, love. Nothing!”

The heartfelt words reverberated through Maggie's chest into Joan's skull where they spread like oil over the sea of her distress. Maggie held Joan until her ragged breathing had slowed and in that time she began to formulate a plan to help Joan slip the shackles of recent months. The initial tempest was over but there would be more squalls to come before Joan could come close to righting herself. But when those squalls faded she would need all the love and understanding she could get. And Maggie intended to see that she got it.

“Right,” she announced briskly, “let’s get those feet seen to.”


	5. Chapter 5

Maggie cushioned the end of the vanity with a thick towel and lifted a battered foot into the light. Blood and iodine soaked into the snowy whiteness as she cleaned the mass of cuts and punctures. Thankfully, most were superficial but it was the other foot that concerned Maggie, the foot that had punched its way through the steel dome of Ivan’s mask was rent by jagged slashes that extended from the sole to her hard ankle bone. The wicked lacerations gaped as she pushed at the skin around them and her creased face was grim as she turned and prepared the suture kit.

 

It was a far cry from the days when she’d done this with her father, a country vet; he had wanted her to follow in the family tradition so had trained her from an early age. She still remembered the all the times they had shared together as he patiently taught her to repair incisions and tears - first on road-kill roos and then on his customers’ livestock – and sometimes, even on the customers themselves! He had wanted her take over his practice when he retired and whilst she loved him and wanted to please him, her determination to join the Army and escape the barren, dust-filled isolation, and to find more people like herself, was greater. Her father had given her his blessing and told her to find happiness where she could - although it hadn’t stopped him drafting her into service whenever she returned home on furlough.

 

“Are you ready for this?” she asked Joan, “it’s not gonna be a quick job. Or a comfortable one.” She peeled a sterile wrapper open and extracted a curved needle pre-threaded with fine silk.

“I’ll be fine,” she slurred. The dull jab of the needle made her grit her teeth as Maggie pierced the raw flesh but she embraced the discomfort; it was the first tangible reaction she’d felt for months - she’d ceased to believe the grumbling complaints from her burned hand but this here was an insistent, nagging bite that was managing to burrow its way through the foggy veil and waken her senses. She winced as the final stitch closed the first of three nasty wounds.

“It’s not too much is it, Joan?”

“No,” she breathed heavily, “it’s OK.”

 

Half a dozen careful stitches dealt with the second laceration and Maggie angled Joan's foot to assess the most troublesome one. It was deep and awkwardly placed across the ball and inner curve of her heel. Gentle as ever, she probed its extent and irrigated it with a small phial of antibiotic solution.

The flaring stab deep in her foot caused Joan to flinch bodily. The unexpected pain arced through her dulled senses and she sucked in a deep breath as she tried to adjust to the sharp, burning tug of the silk as it slid through damaged tissue. Maggie looked up to check on her patient. “Tender,” grunted Joan and gripped the edges of her robe.

 

Her expressive face revealed the fight she had to keep her foot still as Maggie carefully closed the cut with a series of well-judged sutures - features contorted in a snarl of pain and determination as she controlled her muscles - and her insistent mantra of ‘it’s just pain’ did little to abate the torment. She was sweating by the time it was finally over.

“I’m sorry, love, but it had to be done.” Maggie kissed Joan's instep in apology and allowed herself a self-congratulatory moment as Joan twisted her throbbing foot this way and that examining the neat tracks of white surgical strips that traversed her puffy, discoloured skin before it was expertly bandaged and lowered to the floor.

 

Maggie made Joan drink another mug of Milo as she towelled her thick hair and brushed out the tangles. “Remember when your hair reached below your arse, how long it took to do this?” The damp skeins clumped and separated under her gentle strokes, their raven gloss gleaming in the bright light.

“You never complained though, especially when I let you plait it.” She raised her scarred hand and found Maggie’s as they shared the memory of winding the shining black rope around their throats, each of them tightening its bite on the other’s neck as they came bound together.

“Maybe you’ll let it grow again for me…”

“Once I hang up the bun I’ll grow it as long as you like,” she drew Maggie's hand over her shoulder and grazed the prominent knuckles with her chapped lips in silent adoration. “I promise.”

“I’ll hold you to that, you know?”

 

Maggie disappeared and returned swinging a sturdy bamboo walking stick in her hand. “Thought you could put this to its rightful use for once.” She proffered the curved yellow handle to Joan. “You're to keep off that foot – I don’t want to be replacing any ripped stiches,” she warned half seriously.

“Yes, Doctor,” replied Joan drolly and took the polished stick from her. She pushed her hands down the arms of her loose robe and hauled herself upright; turning unsteadily she leaned heavily on Maggie and together they staggered down the hall and into the sanctuary of her bedroom.

 

Depositing Joan gently onto her bed Maggie turned on the reading lamp then closed the window shutters against prying eyes. She felt Joan's sleepy gaze slipping over her tall frame and she adjusted her heavy striped robe asking “would you rather I used the spare room tonight, love?”

“No. I don’t want to be alone.” Joan raised her eyes to Maggie's, “will you just hold me?”

“Oh, my darling, of course I will.” She crossed to the sleek bank of drawers and opened the one that held Joan's pressed and crisply folded nightwear. She held up two sets of pyjamas, “long or short, stripes or…” she squinted at the small pattern repeated over a pale ground “or ducks? Ducks?” she chuckled.

“A moment of weakness,” muttered Joan and smiled guiltily. “Shut up and give me the stripes, I’m cold.”

 

**********

 

Soft golden light cocooned them as they snuggled under the thick fluffy quilt in their nest of pillows. Statuesque as they both were, their combined form seemed lost in the expanse of Joan's huge bed and as Maggie massaged soothing ointment into Joan's scarred fingers she felt her slowly relax. The sound of their synchronised breathing was interrupted by Joan's low, scratchy voice.

“They call me The Freak, you know. They call me demented, a monster, a sadist. They are right to do so; I am all of those things and more…”

“I don’t think you are, Joan. I think that you are one of bravest, most resourceful people I have ever known.” Maggie inclined her head and kissed Joan's damp hair. “Those people who call us names – they live their lives in blinkers, governed by ignorance and fear; they just haven’t had the need to be hard and determined and merciless, with the right encouragement they’d find the same qualities that they abhor in us in themselves. Take that Top Dog of yours for example, she didn’t get there by being _nice_ , no - everything that she hated in you she became herself.”

 

Bea Smith. A small muscle in Joan's cheek twitched for less than a heartbeat. What high hopes she’d once had for a harmonious prison and then that woman had thrown it back in her face! Joan twisted herself around until she was half lying on Maggie, her drawn face wore a pained expression as she scanned Maggie's eyes. “I killed her for my own satisfaction, Maggie! She thought that she was better than me. She thought that she could bring me down. I couldn’t let that go unpunished.”

“Smith? She died of cowardice, Joan, she was spineless, she took the easy way out. You did her a favour; you gave her your mercy.”

“I didn’t, Maggie.” The corners of her pale lips drew downwards as her strong chin crumpled. “I had no need to kill her, I had already ruined her and she was dying in my arms. I didn’t have to finish what she started…. I don’t know what happened to me – I, I wanted to… what’s wrong with me? I, I …”

 

She faltered, tears once more threatening to spill from her anguished eyes, “every other dispatch was a necessity. Some of them brought me a certain degree of …. satisfaction it’s true, but I _enjoyed_ taking the soul of Bea Smith. It was nothing like when I drowned her, no that was business, _that_ was a kindness, it was my design. What I felt then was nothing in comparison to those final moments.” Joan hesitated as she searched for the right words. “I felt…. exultant, transcendent. I’ve never felt anything like it, Maggie – never! There was a purity to it that I can’t explain. No drug, no lover, no victory has ever come close to giving me what I experienced that day. Oh, Maggie! I lost control… and it was exhilarating! I did it because I could, because I wanted to….” Joan halted; her heart beat faster at the memory of supreme power and her pinched face shone briefly in triumph before it tightened once more.

 

“Are you afraid that you’ll want to do it again? That you’ll turn into some psycho-killer?” Joan frowned. “I don’t think that it works quite like that, Joan.” Maggie stroked Joan's cheek. “You touched the raw essence of what it is to be human and experienced something that most people will never know. That’s nothing to be ashamed of.  She’ll never understand but Vera did you a favour that day.” She cupped Joan's face in her smooth palms and gazed levelly at her “Never forget it, but don’t dwell either.”

It was possibly one of the most liberating things that could ever have happened to Joan she reflected. Removing her father from this earth had given her the freedom that she needed to exist but this, this was of a magnitude that far outstripped even that. It was probably the closest Joan would ever get to a spiritual experience.

 

Joan managed a small smile of acknowledgement and laid her heavy head on Maggie's chest as exhaustion took her. Her unconscious mind filled with images of loved ones; but try as she might she could not reach out and touch their dreamy forms and she shouted in frustration. She jerked awake, unsure where she was until her brain processed the solid warmth of Maggie beneath her. Angling her chin Joan looked up into the loving eyes of her soulmate as a sick, morbid fear stabbed at her muddled thoughts and she buried her face in Maggie's wrinkled pyjama top, her forehead pressed hard against the other woman’s sternum.

 

“I’ve lost Nils; my father, Lee….” her muffled voice cracked and became a whispered croak, “…and Jianna. They’re all gone because of me.” The naked truth bored into her chest like a screw turned by the very souls of those few people she had ever loved. She looked fearfully up at Maggie, her tear-filled eyes pleading for reassurance, “you won’t leave me will you, Maggie? Tell me you’ll stay?”

“No, my love, I won’t leave you. I could never leave my special girl.” Maggie kissed her forehead then reached behind her and pulled something out of the drawer. It was a small, worn stuffed animal. One eye and its nose appeared to be long lost, and both ears were mangled. It had once been a rabbit, she knew, but it was so threadbare that it was difficult to tell anymore. She tucked it against Joan's chest and smiled tenderly as her darling girl held it tightly in her large fist and brought it to her nose, inhaling the special odour that all favourite toys acquire over the years.

 

After the tumultuous events of the evening Joan slept like the dead. Her handsome features were finally at ease and Maggie thought how much she resembled a Madonna, serene and gracious in her unconscious beauty. Carefully she disentangled herself and slid out of bed, she wanted to get the house back into some semblance of order for when Joan woke - she didn’t want her to be greeted by a scene of destruction whilst still raw from tonight’s horrors, and she had a plan to set in motion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to The Researcher for generously lending me Joan's bunny from Property of Wentworth :)


	6. Chapter 6

The barren plain stretched away all around them for an eternity. The dead air tasted of damp stone. At the base of a small bluff four broken broom handles had been planted in the stony soil, their freshly splintered ends pointing at the blinding white sky, and seemed to loom above Joan as she stood resplendent in a tight-fitting military uniform of forest green. The jacket was stiff with golden frogging and a gilded sabre hung at her hip, its tip stirring the oily shadows that swirled and danced around her polished jackboots like a poisoned mist.

She turned and plucked the dark-haired woman from the corral. Holding the human insect in her fist as it struggled and sobbed – and well it should she thought to herself – she centred it over a vicious spike and plunged the hapless animal downwards. The crunch and sickening, rushing slide of the pole punching through woman’s trunk vibrated along Joan’s arm and she mourned that the retribution was over so soon. She must try and prolong the demise of her remaining victims.

 

Joan laughed mercilessly as she towered over the two fat trolls in the pen of human thighbones. She lifted Radic by the hair, her scalp stretching comically as it fought the swinging weight of the beast it crowned, and introduced her to her imminent cause of death. With care, she lowered the obese sow onto the wicked point and let the wailing woman’s weight do the rest.

She turned and watched pitilessly as Gambaro’s bowels loosened and the filthy pig shat herself as Radic screamed in agony. “Your turn” she boomed and laughed as she grabbed the disgusting lump of shit-smeared blubber by the scruff and dangled it before her face. The resemblance to a blind mole rat was uncanny she thought idly as short arms and legs flailed ineffectually in the thin air.

 

The torrent of apology that poured from the ugly excuse for a mouth was sickening, but once she had exhausted her stock of wheedling excuses and the broken point was mere inches away from her fundament Gambaro started in on the obscenities. Joan sneered, that was more like it! She dropped the loathsome animal gently onto the broken shaft and smiled in satisfaction at the resulting howl.

“You freak, fucking Freak! I’m gonna gitcha for this!” the rapist squealed as she slipped down the mop handle, its smooth length forcing a path through her internal cavities.

With a flick of her thumbnail Joan opened the sagging belly from hip to hip. “No” came her calm reply in a voice of total finality. Gambaro coughed in astonishment and her innards escaped in a glossy tangle.

 

Unsurprisingly, Gambaro died first. It happened as Joan was conducting the Berlin Philharmonic in a perfect rendition of Holst’s Ode to Death. Her death rattle clashed discordantly with the impassioned music filling the white sky and imbued Joan with an immense calm.  She turned in time to see the ugly pile of flesh dissolve into the inky miasma of shadows. The first pole and its cargo had vanished but she paid the puzzling occurrence no heed, instead there was a new victim. Joan's hands froze in mid-air and she turned with staggering steps to gape at the abomination.

 

The figure in full NKVD dress uniform swung by his neck from crude gallows. Her father’s bloated face stared down at her from beneath the peak of his hat and his blackened tongue rasped over purple lips twisted in a cruel smirk. His milky eyes cast their scathing assessment over her and he croaked “I win!”

Unnoticed, the bloody point finally speared its way through the scalene muscles and raked the pallid skin of Radic’s neck before gravity took control and pulled the screaming woman inescapably downwards and into the jaws of the roiling shadows.

 

Joan glowered at Major Ivan Kireyev, all of her rage and fear and hate gathering in her gut like a ball of poisoned spikes. Her hand gripped the sabre’s hilt and she fought the urge to loose the shining blade as the ball grew and spun, flaying everything it came into contact with. She roared as it tore through her viscera and, shredding the thick green and gold uniform, forced its way into the deadened space between father and child, the torturous barbs reabsorbing into the pulsing mass as it flowed from her rent body in a buzzing rope of sickness that arrowed out and looped itself around the swinging figure until it was encased in a tomb of slickly gleaming poison.

“No” came Joan's steady reply and she seized the root of the cord, wrenching it from her ruined body. The pain was immense but suddenly the ragged end was free and slithering towards its new host.

 

*************

 

The pale, raven-haired woman woke with a gasp. Her whole body was slick with sweat and she clutched at her griping belly with clawed fingers. Sudden, blinding pain seared through her eyeballs and into her brain and she rode a wave of nausea as her body succumbed to the crashing hangover. Her feet hurt like hell.

Gingerly, Joan opened her eyes and squinted at the clock: 5am! She would have groaned had her throat not been so dry, instead all that emerged was a rattling rasp. It took a few seconds for her fuddled senses to register the tall glass reflecting the muted glow of the blue numbers and with supreme effort she managed to get it to her lips and swallow some of its blessed contents.

Maggie's sleep-thickened voice made her jump and dribble the fruity tasting liquid down her neck and inside her pyjama jacket, her muscles tightened in complaint as they recoiled from the unwelcome coldness. “Paracetamol on the side ‘swell, love….” Joan's scrabbling fingers finally slid the two tablets from their small saucer and she forced them down, awkwardly tilting the glass at a sideways angle to avoid raising her head too far from the very necessary support of her pillow. Exhausted she clumsily shoved the half empty glass back where she’d found it and collapsed into irresistible oblivion, arm outstretched and neck still glistening.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to Bijoux 1991 - without whose advice, these following chapters would never have been written x

Someone was calling her name. There it was again. Now she was being shaken. “Joan!” She buried her face in the pillow and batted away the annoying hand on her shoulder. “Come on, Joan, wake up.”

Knowing that Maggie wouldn’t stop, Joan gave in and opened her eyes a fraction muttering thickly “What time is it?” Her narrowed field of vision revealed Maggie's chino clad legs and she turned her head to peer sleepily up at her, a smile blossoming as her gaze found Maggie's gentle features.

The older woman leaned over and smoothed Joan's hair from off her face, tucking it behind her ear. “A little after nine. Come on, you're missing a lovely morning.”

 

The temptation to pull the covers over her throbbing head and sleep some more was still huge but the nagging twinge of her suddenly insistent bladder made her groan and sit up. She stretched and yawned widely.

“How are you feeling?”

Joan scrubbed a hand through her rumpled hair and exhaled loudly “I think ‘rougher than a bear’s arse’ might just about cover it.”

“What a lovely turn of phrase you have!” laughed Maggie and went to open the shutters.

 

Swinging her legs out of bed Joan reached for the cane. The pain in her feet as she tried to stand took her breath away and she sat back down sharply with a surprised gasp.

“Here, take these and wait for them to kick in before getting up.” Maggie pressed a couple of prescription painkillers into Joan's palm and indicated that Joan should lie back and do as she say with a small nod towards the still warm hollow in the quilt.

“I can’t wait that long, Mags, gotta go!” She grimaced as a sharp pain arced through her lower abdomen.

“Hold that thought – won’t be a tick.” Maggie marched out of the room and, despite her tender condition, Joan followed the broad curves of her arse with bleary but appreciative eyes.

 

Maggie reappeared pushing Joan's leather office chair in front of her. She spun the seat and announced “Your carriage awaits, Madame.”

In spite her headache and tight belly Joan couldn’t help but laugh. “You're going to extract the urine using centrifugal force?”

“I’ve managed to rip the piss quite well over the years without it…” she grinned wickedly and Joan grinned back. “Now then, let’s get you sorted out.”

 

As she wheeled Joan towards the large family bathroom Maggie asked “What do you want to do about a shower?”

Joan twitched the lapel of her pyjama top away from her chest and wrinkled her nose at the mixture of sweat and stale alcohol that rose up on her body heat. “I need another one, but…” she raised her bandaged feet.

“Top and tail?”

“No, I need a proper wash. I was sweating like the proverbial last night.”

“No worries, I have an idea.” She manoeuvred Joan into the bathroom and helped her swing herself onto the toilet.

 

When she had been in the High Dependency Unit at Wentworth General she had been forced to use bedpans, she had not even been permitted to wipe herself clean for fear of cross-contamination. The humiliating memory haunted her.  Joan gripped Maggie’s forearms and stared earnestly into her eyes. “Thank you, Maggie, I know this isn’t what you had planned… I don’t like placing this burden on you,” she hesitated for a second, “but I’m glad it’s you.”

“It’s not a burden. Whatever you need, whenever you need it – I’m here.” Maggie kissed her tenderly on the cheek and hurried off downstairs.

 

For the second time that morning Maggie appeared at the doorway with a chair – this time a wire one from the dining room. She placed it in the shower cubicle and adjusted the function and water settings. Her last act before leaving Joan to her privacy was to place two plastic bags and a black latex glove on the vanity unit. “Keep those dressings dry and be gentle with those scratches,” she ordered and pulled the roll of waterproof tape from her wrist where it had rattled against her bones like an oversized bangle, and dropped it next to the bags.

 

Gooseflesh appeared as the cold wire pressed into her bare skin but the cascade of steaming water from the secondary hand-held showerhead sent a bloom of heat down her spine and she flexed her shoulders as her skin responded to the pummelling jets. Despite her superficial aches and pains Joan felt better than she had done in months. The gnawing tightness at the base of her skull was gone and with it, the tension in her throat that had held her words and feelings prisoner; she swallowed freely and moved the showerhead to her collar bones, allowing the scratchy pain as the hot water flooded across her belly and inflamed her broken skin to sharpen her senses.

 

Joan reflected on just how closed down she must have become if she’d thought pushing Maggie away was her best option. She’d been scared, she realised, scared to invite the only person she truly trusted back into her life because she’d known that if she did then something would have to give, that her carefully constructed shell would crack and the rawness of her jumbled feelings would likely destroy her.

In her self-imposed solitude she’d convinced herself that the worst would happen, but it inevitably hadn’t. Recounting her pain and doubts last night had been ugly and punishing but it had also been liberating. And to have someone hold her, believe her and care for her... She’d needed that connection, but more so, she vaguely realised, she deserved it.

 

************

 

Joan's husky voice pierced the silence. “Is there enough for two?”

Maggie whirled around, her hand clutching at her heaving chest. “Fucking hell! You scared the bloody life out of me!” She’d been so wrapped up in her thoughts as she’d finished her cigarette and come in to make coffee that she’d completely failed to notice the woman sitting quietly on the sofa. She set the coffee pot down and folded her arms across her checked shirt “You should have called me,” she scolded “– I told you that I don’t want you on those feet.”

“Oh, it was only from the bottom of the stairs, hardly taxing. I’m getting on quite well with the cane now.”

“Even so…” she shook her head softly at Joan's stubborn independence, knowing full well that she’d be doing exactly the same if their roles were reversed.

 

Joan wrapped her pale fingers around the mug and inhaled the rich, aromatic vapour “I don’t appear to have a coffee table anymore,” she commented lightly and gave a soft snort.

“You haven’t got much of a dining table left either.” Maggie raised an eyebrow as she glanced at the piece of wounded furniture.

A wry smile curled Joan's lip as she turned her head and regarded the bare wall by the stair “Nor a mirror it would appear. Oh well, it can all be replaced.”

“But not your dad’s mask.” Maggie studied Joan's face as she sat at the other end of the sofa and lifted Joan's feet into her lap.

 

Joan regarded Maggie with a thoughtful look in her eyes. “Do you know what? I don’t care.”

“Are you sure?” She cocked her head and squinted quizzically at Joan; her morbid obedience to Ivan, however much she resented her father, ran deep.

The dark eyed woman paused as if ticking off a metal checklist “Yeah, yeah, I am,” she confirmed, her gaze clear and unwavering. In the past, she would have convinced herself that this was true but there was no longer any need; and far from unsettling her the sudden freedom swelled her sore heart.

“Hmmm!” remarked Maggie in pleasant surprise and her face creased in a congratulatory grin.

 

Maggie looked up from inspecting Joan’s dressings. “What were you dreaming about last night? Your arms were all over the shop!”

“Were they?” Joan asked innocently.

“Yeah, you elbowed me right in the tit!” Maggie rubbed her left breast and pouted comically.

Joan smirked at that and flexed her toes against Maggie's palm. “God knows! You know I never remember them.” Her amused gaze swept the room and she wondered idly if it wasn’t time to redecorate. Her roving eyes landed on the two sets of luggage by the front door. “Are we going somewhere?” she asked casually.

Maggie twisted to follow her stare. “The taxi’s booked for eleven thirty.”

“Taxi? Where are we going, Maggie?”

“It’s a surprise, I’ll tell you after breakfast.” She lifted Joan's feet from her lap and stood up. “Will Pain Perdu do you?”

 

Maggie had decided to take Joan away from the elegant sterility of her house, from the plain walls that passively absorbed the poisons of Joan's struggles and exuded them again at her lowest ebb.

At the airport Maggie made Joan wait in the taxi as the driver unloaded their bags and she disappeared inside the large glass doors.

Joan’s face fell when Maggie reappeared pushing a wheelchair. “You’re not serious…!” she exclaimed in horror. Joan was mortified. What if someone she knew saw her? People would assume that she was a cripple! They would talk to her like she was some kind of imbecile, as if it were her brain that were compromised instead of her feet!

Maggie's tone was brusque. “Unless you’ve learned how to levitate overnight, Joan, you're using this bloody wheelchair.”

 

She rolled her eyes as a look like thunder settled on Joan's face. “OK?” she demanded. Joan pouted and turned to stare at the steady stream of cars trundling past. “I said OK?” she paused briefly and narrowed her eyes. “If I have to repeat myself again I won’t be happy…” she warned.

Joan gave an angry sigh and jerked her head round to glare at Maggie. “OK,” she muttered grudgingly and took Maggie's proffered hand. Although she didn’t like to admit it, despite her misgivings it was really a small price to pay in order to regain her equilibrium…

 

*******

 

Joan squeezed Maggie’s fingers as they passed the familiar landmarks and a smile of comfortable contentment softened her solemn face as she turned it to the warm breeze from the open window. It wasn’t until they pulled up outside Maggie's place that Joan could name the sentiment that calmed her still-troubled mind, she was coming home.

She remembered something that Jianna had once told her: that home wasn’t a house or even a place on a map, but where you _belonged_. And rightly or wrongly, she belonged with Maggie; they belonged to each other.


	8. Chapter 8

Within hours of their arrival, Maggie had sourced a pair of elbow crutches and flatly forbade Joan to use them any more than absolutely necessary until her left foot was up to the job of supporting her. Yet despite her initial close observation, Maggie refused to cosset Joan knowing that she’d resent any behaviour she considered mawkish, and over the days encouraged her to work towards healing her body and as far as possible her, mind.

Now that many of her walls were down Joan was able to reflect on how the events in her life were interwoven with her needs and fears and ingrained behaviour, and to balance out Joan's hyper-critical self-assessment Maggie dug out the photo albums showing Joan when she was happy, when she was loved and trusted and cherished, and amongst friends.

 

If she didn’t dwell on the reasons for bringing Joan here in the first place, Maggie was truly happy. It felt so good to have her special girl back home; it had been too long since they'd had any proper time to themselves. In recent years their work commitments had never allowed them more than a few days snatched here and there from their busy schedules, never enough time to fall back under the beguiling spell of being ‘a couple’. It wasn’t as if something were missing when she was separated from Joan but when they were together again she was aware of an extra level of _wholeness_ that nurtured them both. Together they were most definitely greater than the sum of their parts.

For two pins, she thought (and not for the first time), she would marry Joan - even though their attempts at living together for any great length of time had proven to drive Joan stir-crazy - her self-sufficiency and her introvert’s need for space would eventually (and inevitably) push them apart.

 

She sometimes heard Joan pottering about the house, often so deep in thought or memory that after several hours Maggie would search her out and find her sitting like a statue lost in her reverie. At times, Joan cried and in others she would silently appear and wordlessly squeeze Maggie's hand and smile at her with such loving sweetness that Maggie felt tears prick behind her lids.

Joan didn’t talk a great deal; when she did, what she had to say was usually considered and lucid, but it was the moments when it wasn’t that chilled Maggie – Joan’s glittering eyes would seek out an empty place and she would veer from bombastic arrogance to snivelling timidity, her voice wavering, commanding, questioning as she lurched from one random, rambling thought to another without reason or explanation.

 

In those times Joan seemed so lost that Maggie wondered if perhaps she should have stayed at Sinclair longer. 

But Maggie hadn’t pushed Joan to talk and, haltingly, she began to describe the events leading up to the moment she had begun to suspect there was something going wrong with her plan, and with herself… but she carefully avoided most of what happened after her arrest.

Maggie wondered why. Could it be because she had successfully beaten the charges? Perhaps she first needed to talk about the weeks and months preceding the fire to square events in her head. No, Maggie decided, it would be because it was one of the most dehumanising things Joan had ever suffered, and those feelings were still so raw that they had to be cloistered away until Joan was in a better place to process them. 

 

Naturally, Joan said, she’d been dissatisfied with the outcome of Mr Fletcher’s ‘accident’ but had stupidly counted on his continued mental bewilderment to keep him out of harm’s way. Channing had brought him back in a self-serving PR exercise and Vera had supported the oaf because, well, because she was Vera.  What had vexed her most though had been the unpredictability of Fletcher’s erratic recovery – and with good reason too as it turned out.

 

She’d failed to control Vera; although that was a more complicated arena of operations, as well Maggie knew, she'd said with a dissatisfied smile. But, Joan explained, if she’d given Vera what she wanted, when she wanted, then she’d have been no better than Vera – whoring herself for friendship and loyalty – both of which, it turned out, were beyond Vera's capabilities.

 

Vera played a lot on Joan's mind it seemed, certainly her name was mentioned more frequently than Joan seemed to realise. It was evident that she had recognised facets of her early self in Vera and had sincerely wanted to help her overcome those flaws, but she just couldn’t seem to understand how Vera would prefer to remain so cowed by life. It occurred to Maggie that perhaps Joan chose to believe this narrative rather than accept that her attitude towards Vera had played any part in the fiasco.

Maggie thought back to how she had warned Joan about Vera's driving need for an emotional connection and how she’d thought that Vera was deluding herself if she thought that she could understand and accept Joan for all that she was. She’d warned Joan against allowing the primal urge to possess Vera blind her to the reality of her Deputy’s limitations. She had also advised Joan to let Vera down gently.

 

However, in those long weeks following the riot, as Joan had fed with glee on the emotional turmoil she’d carefully generated in her prey, she’d been unusually pricked by a loaded comment from that cunt Westfall and slowly, unconsciously, she had laid the seeds to her own destruction.

 

To be accused of not caring! Of being incapable of it! Of course she cared! Joan argued, she’d cared too much; and the enormity had threatened to topple her.

And if she didn’t care, then why had she fallen victim to her emotions? Why was she filled with this fear and uncertainty? Why did some things hurt so much when others gave her nothing but pride and fulfilment? She was so proud of how she had saved little baby Joshua, how she had worked out where he was and had disposed of the lunatic Warner, but in the same breath it had been her stupidity that had endangered them all – and which had led her to discover how Jianna had really died….

The rawness she’d felt when Doreen had mocked her pristine love and called her _that_ name had turned to rage at the injustice of what she’d become… it had been too much for her to shake off. It left an ugly wound that festered in her heart.

 

Oh, Doreen. Doreen Anderson. Why her? She’d broken her own rules for Doreen; but she’d misjudged Anderson’s effect on her and had wrongly permitted herself too much freedom to remember, and then the past had bled into the present and then… and then… She’d allowed herself to become distracted. Preoccupied. Careless.

And for all that Doreen had done which hurt her, Joan had been unable to shake off the desire to be her friend. Stripped of all her status, it was Doreen who had ranked higher in prison society, Doreen whom she had to impress.

The softness in her eyes as she spoke about this girl reminded Maggie of when Joan had told her about her early days with Jianna.  

 

She talked about Ivan; told Maggie how she’d stopped fencing because she’d been so scared that repeated exposure would encourage him back into her life as once before. It hadn’t worked – she found herself seeking his advice, already knowing the answer but needing reassurance, and he seized the chance with both hands.

She swore to her lover that she’d actually felt his arms around her, his hand stroking her hair when she collapsed in the debris of her fury on that awful night which should have been filled with the celebration of a new life.

 

Her weakness must have appalled him though, for after that he offered no more support – only judgement. And when he’d deserted her, after she’d been removed from everything that made her a success, she hadn’t known whether to mourn or rejoice. Even now she didn’t know if she _could_ mourn him.

 

It was clear to Maggie that Joan had suffered a form of altered reality again but there was no tumour this time, her tense conversation with the director of Sinclair had confirmed that much at least - if nothing else. Knowing Joan as she did Maggie suspected that she’d driven herself too hard and for too long without taking time to unload and allow her mind to uncoil. Maybe the heavy sedation at Sinclair was what she had needed then – an enforced break from everything – but she should never have been alone when she came out of it, and Maggie's heart broke over and over each time she thought of how destitute Joan must have felt.

 

There was no one to help Joan after her fall. Her lawyer had taken care of necessary (if dubious) admin but she was bloodless and however much it hurt, Maggie could only monitor her progress at a distance – for their mutual safety and for Joan's reputation. She didn’t even have her oldest friend, Nils, to count on.

Joan had cursed his name time and again. He had failed to kill Fletcher on both occasions. He had left DNA at two crime scenes. He was a turncoat. He was disappointing.

If he’d done all he had as a mark of friendship then Joan might have been able to forgive him but he had requested payment to undertake very specific, specialised tasks and had therefore underwritten the risk with his own freedom.

Their friendship had meant so much to her it was difficult not to remember the good times and all the happy warmth they generated, and it hurt. But money had queered the friendship - and his treachery had killed it.  However, survival, she grudgingly admitted, was the name of the game and he had done what he thought he had to – just as she had.

 

As predicted, intense emotional squalls blew up when Joan found some of her revelations, or their ramifications too much to bear and more than one confessional moment ended in tears and recriminations. Yet afterwards she felt freer; the constraining threads of her broken relationship with her father were unravelling and a good many had just snapped outright as her rage had overtaken her, yet to the loss of all the women in her life she would always be irrevocably bound by gossamer strands, finer than spider’s silk and heartbeat for heartbeat, just as strong. For some reason, she counted Anderson in this number, yet not Vera. She still couldn’t name it, but there was something about Vera that had made her hesitate.

 

But the woman she would forever be bound to tightest was Maggie. Maggie was her rock. Maggie made her feel safe. Maggie's love gave her hope.

 

The warm weather had opened the nearby beaches and, once Joan could hobble tolerably well, the two women spent quiet afternoons at the high tide mark intermittently reading or chatting under the shade of a large umbrella or swimming in the sheltered cove. They were frequently the only people there and soon took every opportunity to swim naked and dry off under the glare of the sun before retreating to the shade.

 

Joan luxuriated in the sense of total liberation their perfect little wilderness provided. They could be the last two people on earth she thought fancifully as she basked in the rejuvenating rays of the sun; natural sunlight in Wentworth had been doled out in 45-minute slots – even less once she was condemned to medical isolation – and a Melbourne winter was as grey and dismal as a drowned kitten.

Her freedom finally started to feel real instead of an experiment that could be ended at any time.

 

She found that her body was swiftly regaining its erotic memory and soon the nearness of Maggie's well-padded form started to produce feelings of need that had been absent for too long. As she massaged sun screen into her hot ivory skin she would feel a relaxed warmth bloom between her thighs and her nipples tighten with a pleasurable ache, and each time Maggie stoically rubbed lotion on her back she would crush her breasts into the hard-packed sand and bite her lip as a flutter played in her throat and clit.

 

********

 

The corn silk powder coated her skin like gossamer dust and Joan gave in to a delicious shiver as she ran the soft, long-handled puff against the hanging swell of her breast. Her reflection smiled seductively back at her from the floor-length mirror and she twisted to admire her figure. She’d lost the bloated slackness developed on a diet of prison food and later, vodka, and she looked good.

She felt good too.

It had been seventeen days since her last abortive attempt to initiate intimacy with Maggie and whilst she still wasn’t sure how she would react to direct stimulation she knew that she wanted to fuck her.

 

The cool black rubber quickly warmed as she drew it over her feet and up her calves to her knees. Standing up she eased the tight suit over her thighs and awkwardly reached behind her to pull the zip closed over the crease of her sex and firm buttocks.  With the suit dangling like an apron in front of her, Joan reached for the shaped coif and fed her dark plait through the hole and carefully fitted the hood over her skull and jaw, conscientiously tucking away any stray hairs before winding the plait into a tight bun then securing it with a wicked looking spike.

 

The hairs on her arms complained gently as she worked them into the narrow sleeves then drew the sculpted body over breasts and shoulders. With a slow ripping noise and only minimal contortion, the suit tightened around her long curves and her lids flickered over dreamy eyes at the feeling of confinement. Her nipples hardened and caught against the rubber cups, moulded enough to receive her generous swell but snug enough to kiss every centimetre of skin. 

 

Joan stood facing the quadrant of Maggie’s walk-in wardrobe where her uniforms hung. The crisp shirts glowed against the various dark or muted fabrics and she wished that her own uniforms were hanging on the rail behind her in beautiful symmetry. She especially wished that the sombre grey of her own Governor’s jacket and trousers was available to her right now.

 

To one side hung Maggie’s Waffen SS uniform, so deadly that it seemed to absorb the shadow. She opened the suit cover and lovingly stroked the dense black wool and softly gleaming insignia, the uniform was an original piece and she smiled wistfully as remembered the curious looks the vendor had sneaked towards her and Maggie as they had bought matching tunics and breeches. 

 

Aside from the sinister beauty of the uniform one of the darker reasons for buying original pieces had been to defy her father. Ivan had allegedly been orphaned during the Battle of Stalingrad and he hated the Germans with an endless zeal – what better way to disrespect him than by revelling in the regalia of their most deadly unit? Or using it to fulfil a facet of her sexuality? A sexuality that he so hated.

For five months he had been on his own, eleven years old and forced to beg, steal, fight and lie just to survive. That was the official line but Joan strongly suspected that Ivan had been in his element – she firmly believed that his experiences then had helped mould his unique personality and equipped him to thrive in the NKVD, protecting Mother Russia’s borders from infiltration by spies and other hostiles through espionage, torture and murder. 

 

She slipped her fingers behind a lapel, then with a small moue of regret - for this uniform wasn’t part of her plan today - she folded the rustling shroud back over the contentious outfit and sealed it against dust and air.

 

Almost without thinking her hand reached for Maggie's old Rawmarsh uniform; they had both filled out a little since those days and whilst her own pinched her waist and strained at the buttons and hips, Maggie's now fitted her like the proverbial glove. She laid the light grey serge out on the spare bed and slipped the blue shirt from the hanger. Her three-inch dress shoes, the ones Maggie knew she reserved for when she wanted to be really imposing (and had packed especially for her), had been polished and sat neatly together and precisely aligned with the bed. 


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With extra thanks to Duchess for her assistance in ironing out the kinks :)

As she clothed her glossy rubber suited body with each utilitarian item Joan experienced a strengthening flush of power. This uniform was of great significance to them both: Rawmarsh was where she had learned the true art of domination. With Maggie as her guide she had toughened up and made her pain work for her, together they took their pleasure from the hapless women – it had been an important time for them both.

She knotted the navy tie with a half-windsor and buttoned the tailored jacket under the swell of her breasts, her chest hitching as the fabric caressed her sensitised skin through its latex sheath. The utility belt cinched her trousered hips with a muted click and her fingers trailed lovingly over the grip of the customised leather baton and the matte black powder-coated handcuffs that hung from the loops.

As a final touch, she rimmed her eyes with a smudge of kohl and stained her lips a deep crimson.

 

Last night she had finally felt that she had regained some control over herself without the need to repress those things that had constrained her and directed her responses for half her life or more. Little by little a sort of mission statement had begun to form in her consciousness.

I know what I am, I know how I am, and more importantly I know _who_ I am – where I came from, where I want to go, where I want to be and how I want to be. I will achieve what I set out to, to the best of my abilities.  I cannot allow anything else – even if I fail along the way I will know that I tried and that I can try again.

 

She pulled on her oiled leather gloves and snugged them down her long fingers. Now she was ready.

 

“Ferguson!” she barked. “Cell search. Now!” Joan filled the doorway and fixed Maggie with a steely look.

Maggie jumped and dropped her book, staring at her in bewilderment for a split second before her lips twitched with suppressed joy. “Is there a problem, Miss Ferguson?” she asked with a worried look on her face.

“Don’t talk back to me,” Joan snarled. “On your feet.” The older woman rose instantly. Joan stood aside to let her squeeze by and followed Maggie towards their bedroom.

 

Maggie was filled with excitement at what this signified. It had been torture being so close to Joan but unable to ‘be’ with her, because knowing that Joan was fragile and still hurting hadn’t stopped her own body from guiltily responding to Joan's proximity. But it looked like Joan had turned a corner and this evening she was definitely in charge of what she wanted.

 

She shivered in the chill, the air-con must be down to 17C at least! Maggie drew her cardigan shut and stared at Joan as she swaggered around the room exuding a sexual menace that made her weak at the knees.

“Take that thing off. It’s against regulations.” Joan gestured towards the illegal woolly with a flick of her left forefinger.

“But, Miss Ferguson….” protested Maggie.

“Take it off now.” A mean look entered Joan's eye. “Or are you trying to hide something, Ferguson?”

“No, Miss,” said Maggie meekly and shrugged the offending garment from her shoulders.

 

Joan casually rifled through the contents of Maggie's drawers and cupboards until she spied her goal: a large storage box and an old-fashioned vanity case. “And what do we have here, hmmm?” Joan pulled them out and placed them on the bed then flicked the catches to reveal their contents. She raised an eyebrow in mock distaste and turned to the grey-haired woman expectantly.

“Just personal items, Miss Ferguson.”

“Oh, _personal_ items are they?” Wrapping a rubber glove from her pocket around its base, Joan lifted a large, ribbed dildo from the uppermost tray in the storage box and dangled it between them by her thumb and forefinger. “And just how ‘personal’ do you get with them, hmmm?” she taunted.

 

“Who are they for? Do you have a prison wife, Ferguson?” the dildo landed back in the box with a dull clatter.

“No.”

“Yet you can’t use all of these, these _implements_ on yourself can you?”

“No, Miss Ferguson.” Maggie found herself staring at Joan’s perfect lips as they issued her questions.

“So, you're just a slut then, yes? Is that what I’m supposed to infer?” she tilted her chin, demanding an answer from the discomfited woman. Maggie refused to answer. “Are you a slut, Ferguson? Answer me.” Joan stepped in front of the prisoner and gripped her chin, forcing her to look into her menacing eyes. “I repeat – and this is for the last time, Ferguson so you think hard before you do answer – Are. You A. Slut?”

Maggie swallowed hard. “Yes, Miss.”

Joan's voice dropped to a seductive whisper. “Yes, what?”

“Yes, I am a slut, Miss Ferguson.”

Joan's lips curved in a smile of smug satisfaction. “Good! Now we’re getting somewhere!”

 

Joan noticed how Maggie was beginning to rub her thighs together. “What’s wrong with your legs?”

“Nothing!” Maggie blinked anxiously and tried to look away.

“I don’t believe you. You _were_ trying to hide something weren’t you?” She tightened her grip on Maggie's chin.

“Honest, Miss, I wasn’t!” bleated Maggie

“Strip search. Now!” Releasing the inmate Joan pulled up a chair and extracted a packet of cigarettes and a cheap lighter from inside her tunic as she sat down and crossed her long legs. She tapped both ends of an unfiltered cigarette on the chair arm and stuck one end between her carmine lips. “Well, go on then,” she ordered and lit up.

 

“Are your nipples always so hard?”

“It’s the cold, Miss.”

“Really?” she murmured disinterestedly. “Come on, you know the drill, get on with it.” Maggie bent over and obediently parted her cheeks. “Are you always so weT? Or is that the cold too?” Joan taunted. “Come here.”

 

Joan flicked Maggie's nipple hard “And this is just because it’s cold, hmmm? It has nothing to do with you having lewd thoughts of me using some of your, ah, personal items on you then?”

“No, Miss Ferguson.”

“And this,” Joan pushed two fingers unceremoniously between Maggie's damp lips and deep into her wetness before holding her shining fingers to the light. “This has no connection at all to any dirty little fantasy of yours?” Maggie felt her cunt pulse as she stared at Joan's mesmerising mouth.

“I, I don’t know what you mean, Miss.” Joan raised an eyebrow and graced Maggie with a wicked smile as her fingers twitched open the bottom button of her jacket.

 

“Hold out your hands” she ordered and slipped the handcuffs from her belt. Maggie licked her lips in anticipation and complied. She gave a small sigh of contentment as the single strands clicked into their housings and tightened around her wrists. “I can’t be bothered to search through all of this…” Joan flapped a gloved hand at the box and vanity case, “so you're doing to do it for me.  I want everything laid out for my inspection and I want it doing quickly.” Joan took a final pull on her cigarette and stubbed it out absently as she stared hard at the naked woman.

 

By the time Maggie had completed Joan's orders their large bed was covered in orderly rows of vibrators and dildoes; clips, clamps and chains; restraints and harnesses.

“Very good, Ferguson,” drawled Joan as Maggie stood before her awaiting further instruction. She rose leisurely to her feet and casually surveyed the array of ‘personal’ items, recognising some of her favourites amongst the collection.

Moving behind Maggie, Joan ran her gloved finger down the curve of her spine. “My, that’s quite an assortment.” Her lips were mere millimetres from Maggie's ear and the naked woman could feel the heat radiating from Joan's body as she towered over her in the cold room. Joan pointed towards the strap-ons “Choose one.”

“Pardon?”

“I said choose one.” Maggie hesitated. “Did I stutter?” Joan hissed. “Do it. Now!”

“Y-yes, Miss.” Maggie knew immediately which one she wanted.

 

“So, which is it to be, hmmm?” Joan's hands settled on Maggie's soft hips and she guided her charge to the edge of the bed, pinning her knees between the mattress and her own solid legs. “Show me.”

Maggie leaned forward and stretched out her fettered hands until her gnarled fingers encountered the silky-smooth silicone surface of her favourite - it was a little too long and a little too thick for comfort, and it made her come like a train. Her clit jolted as Joan pulled her arse tight into her uniformed crotch and her strong fingers explored the rounded slopes of Maggie's upper thighs

“Is that the one?” she asked in a voice thickened with desire.

“Yes, Miss Ferguson.”

“Then take it.”

She grasped the dildo and harness and straightened up, her fingertips caressing the rippled shaft, and a hand at her throat yanked her hard against the rough uniform and the hard/soft woman it adorned. 

 

Joan’s body pulsed at the contact with Maggie’s. Sharp twinges of lust chased between her thighs and her breath came heavy on Maggie’s neck. Spinning her around, Joan pushed her towards the chair and resumed her seat. Each movement she made caused the rubber skin to tug and pull at her cunt, her arse, her tits; she became slippery as her juices seeped along her swollen crevices.

 

Making Maggie wait until she was ready to continue Joan lit another cigarette with exaggerated mannerisms. At length, she coolly inspected the goose-pimpled woman as she drew thick smoke into her mouth, gathering it in a ball before sucking it into her lungs and shooting it out in a series of perfectly fat smoke rings. Her hand slipped beneath the hem of her jacket and reappeared holding the leather covered baton; she twirled it lazily in her strong fingers for a few seconds whilst staring at Maggie’s wrinkled brown nipples sitting hard and proud on golden breasts then slapped the tip against the nearest one, holding it there.

 

“Still cold?” she sneered. “Well, I think we should see if we can’t get you warmed up a little, mmm?” she rubbed the baton over the depressed peak and eyed the way Maggie's fingers tightened around the apparatus in her hands.

Slipping the smouldering cigarette between her lips, Joan pushed herself from the chair and dropped the baton onto the empty seat. Taking the dildo and harness from Maggie she bent and laid them over the baton then straightened and briefly ran her hands over the soft breasts that jutted towards her. “You may undress me.”

“But, Miss Ferguson, what if someone comes?” Maggie could barely hide her excitement as her clit jerked and throbbed from Joan's fleeting caress.

Joan pulled the cigarette from between her lips and angrily ground it out. “Are you disobeying an order, inmate?” She pinched Maggie’s nipples and curled her lip in disdain as the cuffed woman gasped in pleasure.

 

The sensation of Maggie's hands brushing against her body as her uniform was removed with care and reverence was exquisite and the pleasure played across her handsome face with every arousing touch. She was interrupted by Maggie's throaty murmur. “There’s a mark…just here,” she raised her hands and indicated on her own face, “…may I?” Joan nodded her assent, dark eyes drinking in Maggie's mature beauty.

 

Her mouth twitched from wanting to kiss Maggie and a deep, tugging sensation grew low down in her belly. Lips parting seductively, she gasped softly as Maggie traced the line of her throat, her gnarled finger flowing over the border of suit and coif, and delicately stroked the glossy rubber that encased her cheek and temple. A rash of goosebumps broke out across her body; she’d been forced to endure the touch of so many people whilst sequestered from Society, none of whom she deemed fit to do her laundry, let alone enter her personal space and actually take the liberty of touching her. Equally, she’d been required to touch some of them although she’d at least had some degree of autonomy when it came to how and where.

But Maggie, Maggie was the only one she desired contact with now; only Maggie knew her intimately… but they were going off-script – tempting though it was – and she needed to retake control of the scene.

 

 

“Now, Ferguson, put the harness on me.”

Maggie crouched before Joan and as her gaoler stepped into it she lustily eyed the plump furrow gleaming between her black thighs, thinking how much she wanted to rub her face into it, to lick it until it shone and Joan was tugging at her hair for more.

Joan breathed noisily as the straps were slowly drawn up her legs and cinched against her moist cunt and curving buttocks. Her skin was so sensitive inside her beloved catsuit that she had to bite her lip, and bite it hard, to stop from moaning out loud and ruining the effect. “Very good, Ferguson;” she managed in a semi-normal voice, “it’s time for you to kneel.”

Maggie's eyes grew wide as Joan slipped the heavy cock through the large mounting ring, and she licked her lips in anticipation. Again, Joan forced her to wait as she made minute adjustments to the fastenings and then picked up her cigarettes and lighter, buying time as she slipped back into her stern character.

 

The cock was so thick Maggie had trouble fitting it in her mouth so instead she resorted to slobbering wet kisses along its silky, milky blue length, pumping its base into Joan's mons as she worshipped her mistress.

The lighter flared above her and Maggie heard Joan expel smoke with a trembling breath. “Touch yourself.” With just a trace of reluctance, Maggie moved her damp fingers to her hard clit and cried out against the solid girth of the rod in sheer bliss.  She rubbed it over her face, nuzzling at its base as her cunt responded to much needed stimulation and drove coherent thought from her mind. The touch of her hard fingers and even harder steel cuffs on her hot quim was mind-blowing after all the delicious build-up.

 

Joan slapped Maggie's lined face with her wet shaft. “Why choose something so big that it won’t fit in your mouth, hmmm?” she mocked. The nicotine was beginning to make her head spin and she pulled away to crush the glowing ember into the ashtray.

“It wasn’t my mouth I was thinking about when I bought it, Miss Ferguson,” she panted. Maggie’s hazel eyes were large and dark with lust as her hands worked between her parted thighs. She leaned back and spread her lips showing Joan just how excited she was, a finger sliding over the flushed, shining ridges of sexual flesh. “Please, Miss, will you fuck me with it? I promise I won’t say nothing to no-one.” She knew from Joan's wolfish expression that she would get her wish – she could see how Joan's large nostrils flared as they caught her musky scent.

“Damn right you won’t.” Grabbing a bottle from the bed Joan lifted her by the throat and propelled her to the far wall. Swiftly unlocking the cuffs, she slammed Maggie face first into the cool plaster and raised her hands above her head in the time-honoured position of the body search.

 

Knocking her feet apart Joan pushed the thick head against Maggie's vagina and teased the swollen opening with soft thrusts before sliding the now slippery dome along her exposed split. “Tell anybody about this and I’ll make you sorry,” growled Joan into the prisoner’s ear.

Maggie stiffened and her fingers clutched at the wall. “Oh, Miss Ferguson!” she cried breathlessly as everything in her being centred on that electrifying union. “Oh please, please, Miss… I won’t,” she pleaded.

Eyes glazed with lust, Joan pulled away and drizzled lube over the impressive head of her mighty dick, it was a beast and she loved using it. The air cushioned base felt like it was kissing her clit as she drove its thick weight into Maggie and the noises she could coax from her lover’s throat were unbelievable and so indescribably hot! Allowing the glistening strands to coat the bulbous end, she carefully positioned Maggie's legs and moved in close behind her before pushing herself into her eager victim with persuasive little thrusts that opened her up and made her shout in joy.

 

Maggie's ecstasy was shot through with vicious darts of dark discomfort. Joan's skilful fucking pushed her to higher and higher peaks of abandonment but in those brief seconds between cresting one wave and beginning to climb the next her muscles rebelled and burned in stinging pain, and she almost blacked out at the intensity of sensation when Joan slid in deeper than ever before and her rubberised hips slapped rhythmically against her quivering thighs and backside making them ripple and sing.

Joan covered Maggie’s body with her own and joyously pumped in and out as, her orgasm quickly gathering steam, her lover quaked and fought for breath between hoarse cries and strangled grunts. Joan rubbed herself against the noisy woman, her own senses also shrieking with need inside the confines of her erotically constrictive outfit, and delivered sucking bites to Maggie's neck and shoulders, losing herself in the sound and taste and smell of her one true love.  

 

And as Maggie became more and more incoherent Joan's body responded and her already painfully aroused clitoris swelled further until its very tip encountered the sodden latex of her suit and her hips bucked uncontrollably, driving Maggie to sob “Oh, fuck, Joan! Touch me! I’m there!” Using her teeth Joan stripped off her glove – she wanted to feel her lover’s body, her heat, know how hard she was – fuck, she just needed to touch Maggie!

The bottle of lube had toppled over when she’d roughly shoved it on top of the painted dresser and she dipped her naked fingertips into the handy, gleaming puddle then brought them to Maggie's clit, the muscles of her forearm flexing against the wall as she teased the shattering orgasm from her soulmate, all the time feeling the clamouring need tighten in her own belly.

 

She clung to the older woman as Maggie stiffened and shoved herself backwards onto the mighty cock, supporting her when her knees weakened and she fell against the wall shaking helplessly. Joan gently withdrew and her sticky fingers found a quivering breast which she massaged gently as she nuzzled the soft skin behind Maggie's ear, the hot dildo, coated in a thick layer of lube and milky secretions, sandwiched wetly between them.

 

Maggie’s grizzled pubes were plastered to her ruddy mons and she shone with a mixture of sweat and sex as she rested in the chair and drew gratefully on her cigarette, watching as Joan slipped out of the harness then unwound her bun and carefully eased the coif from her head. Her special girl’s silver spangled hair was damp with perspiration and small curls sprang out from her hairline. Maggie was struck by how young she looked just then, as if their years together had only just started; she held out her hand and Joan took it, smiling down at her as her fingers curled against Maggie's smooth palm.  

“I never want this to end.” Maggie understood implicitly what Joan meant, not this - a variation on one of their oldest and best loved scenes - but them, their joyous, binding connection that cemented their place in this world.

 

********

 

Maggie was gently washing her tender sex when Joan silently stepped into the shower enclosure. She took the opportunity to watch her grey-haired mentor for a delicious moment, the familiar tight ache blossoming again in her lower belly as her cunt pulsed with arousal, then stepped behind her and slipped her long arms around Maggie, hugging her tight. Her mouth found Maggie's neck and she hungrily began to suck it, biting the soft flesh as her wiry bush pressed hard into a wet buttock and her nipples dimpled shining shoulders.

 

Slipping around Maggie to face her, Joan tenderly cradled the back of her shorn neck and kissed her deeply, initially luxuriating in the burst of chemicals released deep in her brain, then her tongue became more forceful, possessing Maggie's mouth as she gave in to the consuming need that made her burn like thermite.

Maggie's hands gripped her lithe back as hot water sluiced over them both, washing away the tacky layer of powder and sweat, and sure of what she wanted Joan pushed them down to cup her bottom, urging Maggie to squeeze as she sucked and chewed on her mentor’s lower lip and pushed her throbbing clit against the padded hip.

 

“Ritochka, zhizn’ moya, dusha moya” Joan whispered passionately into Maggie's ear, “love me…” She took Maggie's right hand and slid it around the firm curve of her hip until worn fingertips grazed her pubic hair and she guided them between her thighs, encouraging Maggie to press and stroke her forested lips as her own fingers strayed to Maggie's breast and started to pluck at the wrinkled nipple.

“Mmm, Zhannochka moya,” Maggie groaned in response and began to work her fingers into the yielding heat of Joan's swollen sex.

 

Maggie's touch was electric and Joan staggered, stunned by the explosive sensation. She felt herself gently pushed against the cool tiled wall as Maggie tenderly rubbed slick juices over her bulging clit.

“OK?” asked Maggie softly and kissed Joan's arched throat, her hand gliding up Joan's side to cup a heavy breast.

Joan nodded as she rode a wave of pleasure with hitching gasps and pressed Maggie's hand against her wetness, encouraging it to move faster, harder.

 

“Oh, my Love. Oh! OH!!!” Joan cried. Maggie's palm had moulded itself to the curve of her body, her fingertips dabbled in the clutching ring of aching muscle as it pumped out waves of silken lubrication and her gnarled fingers pushed hard against the slippery ridge of tissue beneath her clit – the bony knuckles massaging it in explosive ways – as her palm curled around the triangular tip of Joan’s glans and pulled on her clitoral hood. Her whole cunt was being rocked with every strong, circular motion of Maggie's hand and she pushed herself desperately into it as a feeling of such exquisite bliss gathered in the furnace between her thighs that she thought she might die.

 

She could see the sensation in her mind’s eye – a shining ball of iridescence that stretched and bulged as she drew closer and closer to orgasm. Flinging her arms around Maggie she pulled her face into the crook of her neck and convulsed as her lover’s hot mouth latched onto her burning skin, her cheek banging hard against the top of Maggie's head as she let herself be taken by the crushing surges of ecstatic release. Full of light, she floated, pulled this way and that by the roaring peaks of her climax until she was drawn down again into the earthly bliss of Maggie's loving touch.

 

Maggie slowed her hand, fingers barely twitching as Joan shook and writhed against her, supporting her large frame as her special girl shouted Maggie’s name as if calling to her gods.

“Welcome back, my darling,” she murmured into Joan's ear and hugged her tight as the trembling amazon recovered her senses. A happy smile played on her lips as she thought of how Joan had called her Ritochka; not given to endearments or pet names, those words from Joan held special significance; her mother spoke Russian badly but she always kissed Joan goodnight with the same loving phrase: ‘Zhannochka, zhizn’ moya, dusha moya…’ – Joanie, my life, my soul…

 

She placed her smile on Joan's mouth and kissed her softly, nuzzling her nose with her own in quiet adoration.

“I love you, Maggie. I love you so much it will last to the end of time.” Joan stared at Maggie with an intense fierceness that bound them together.

“And wherever I am, whatever I am, I will feel it. I love you too, Joan Ferguson.” She kissed her hard on the lips then pulled Joan under the shower head, “how about we get you cleaned up and we go out to dinner, eh? Somewhere expensive - I’m too rooted to cook!”

“Only if you promise not to use that kind of language when we’re there!” Joan laughed. She leaned in and whispered into Maggie’s ear “save it for when we get back,” before gently biting her earlobe.


End file.
